Monday, February 14, 2011

Globe capitalizes on market opportunities for mobile data services

Globe Telecom aims to cement its leadership in mobile data services with an aggressive push for new device and mobile data offers. The company said the attractive offers will make mobile data more accessible and affordable to mobile phone subscribers.

“We see good potential in mobile data services as Filipinos start to upgrade their devices and the price of these units drop to more affordable levels. We have been gearing up for this especially in terms of technical support,” said Globe President and CEO Ernest Cu. “The trend on social networking continues to go up, and we see it as a good sign that the market is ripe for mobile internet use in the country.”

To attract subscribers to use mobile data services, Globe rolled out smartphone offers at every price plan. For example, a subscriber can already avail of an Android handset like the Samsung C3303 for as low as Postpaid Plan 499. Not only this, it also bundled a free 30-day trial of Globe Super Surf with select plans and devices for subscribers to experience mobile internet and access a world of content. Globe has also diversified its data plan offers to include more tablet devices like the Huawei S7 and Samsung Galaxy Tab.

“Growing our mobile data business is a key priority this year through enhanced customer experience, wider variety of mobile data plans, devices and content. We are also encouraged by the increasing subscriber take up in mobile data use,” Cu added. In 2010, Globe reported double-digit growth year-on-year on mobile data revenues.

To power up subscriber experience, Globe has an established partnership with GetJar, the world’s second largest applications store with over a billion downloads to date. It provides more than 75,000 mobile applications to consumers in more than 200 countries for both feature phones and smartphones across all major platforms such as Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, iPhone and Symbian. Through GetJar, Globe subscribers have been able to download thousands of mobile applications (apps) via the Globe WAP portal m.globe.com.ph, ranging from games, education, social networking, entertainment, finance, food, health, search, lifestyle and several other utility applications, including popular applications such as Facebook® Mobile, Yahoo!, Nimbuzz, Opera Mini Browser and eBuddy.

Last month, Globe introduced several mobile internet offers that cater to diverse surfing habits and price points. Recently, the company launched POWERSURF, a consumable, prepaid mobile internet offer that allows subscribers to surf the internet for 60 minutes for just P15, or effectively, only P0.25 per minute, within one day. Globe has also reduced its 30-days unlimited surfing offer to only P999 for 30 days.